


Buttercup

by its_dian



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Childhood Friends, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, In a good way though, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Pet Names, Sexuality Crisis, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:07:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29845401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_dian/pseuds/its_dian
Summary: When he meets someone new and gets back in touch with someone from his past, Dream finds himself in a rather- confusing position.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound/Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	Buttercup

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to one very special cat named Buttercup :D

Sinking into the couch, Clay glances at the time on his phone.

1:57 am.

He glances at the end of the couch, specifically at the Nintendo Switch in front of his feet.

I mean, all of the shops are closed, but it couldn’t hurt to run around for a little bit in animal crossing to at least have something to do.

All of his friends and family members are asleep (curse his lack of a proper sleep schedule), so he can’t talk to anyone. He reaches down, turning on the switch as he curls up with his blanket.

The soft upbeat music plays and he gently sways his head side to side as he makes his character run around. The majority of his villagers are asleep, but as he runs onto the beach, he sees Pashmina walking along the coast. He speaks to her briefly, mindlessly picks up some seashells to sell later, and heads back to his house.

His little home has a green roof, and it’s quite cozy, if he does say so himself.

He lets his character hop into bed, and decides to tour some islands with the dream feature. He laughs softly at the irony, considering his username on most platforms is literally just ‘Dream’.

He goes through a couple, only getting progressively more in awe of the islands. He’s never even seen some of these flowers- and what is that statue?

He doesn’t know, and he’s too tired to look it up.

Eventually, he gets to a certain island that really gets his attention. There’s a lot of blue, and it’s all very pretty. He runs around the island, checking out the names of all the flowers and noticing little chaotic things, like the penis drawn on the flag and the random fossils laying around everywhere.

Clay likes it here.

He checks the community board in the town square, noticing ones clearly left by other visitors, supposedly the owner of the island’s friends, that say things that are probably inside jokes he’ll never understand. But then there’s one note that sticks out.

It’s a message saying to look up the username ‘Georgenotfound’ on twitter. Clay had never seen anyone do this before, although it’s really a smart idea if you think about it.

He writes the username down into his phone’s notes and saves it for later, leaving the island and going back to his own.

He turns off his switch, and gently tosses it back to it’s previous place at the other end of the couch. He considers getting up and going to put it on charge in his office, but that would require moving. And he’s really comfortable.

It’ll be fine.

He snuggles back up with the blanket, and lets himself drift off right there on the couch. And tomorrow, he’ll check out Georgenotfound on twitter.com.

\- - -

He wakes up later that morning, sitting up and popping his back. It’s sore after sleeping in that position, but he’ll deal with it. It’s not like he has too much of a choice, after all.

He checks his phone for the time, and he’s apparently slept in till 8:34 am.

He yawns, and forces himself to get up and take care of himself. He uses the bathroom, plugs in his switch before he forgets, and makes himself some waffles in the toaster.

The house is quiet considering he lives alone, but Patches eventually wanders in and hops up onto the table he’s eating at.

“Hey Patchy! How are you this morning?” 

His voice goes all high-pitched as he says this, and he can’t bring himself to care. I mean, it’s a normal thing to talk to your pets as if they’re a baby, right?

He gets up after he finishes the last bite of his waffle, making Patches her special food and leaning back against the counter as she eats, the quiet sound of her chewing and the clinking of her collar against the bowl bringing a sense of comfort.

He picks up his phone from the kitchen island, checking twitter briefly before he remembers the username from the island earlier that morning. Checking his notes to make sure he’s got it right, he types it into the search bar and hits enter.

A rather simple profile comes up, with a pastel blue color scheme and a simple ‘G’ as the profile picture. His display name is just ‘George’ and his bio reads ‘He/him, 24’. It’s simple, and sort of intimidating, but Clay’s hopelessly curious, so he goes to message George. He types a simple ‘Hi! I got this username from an animal crossing island so if this is the wrong person I’m going to be really embarrassed lmao’ but as he hits send he realizes he hardly started a conversation there, and sends a quick ‘So how are you?’ to try and make up for it and get the ball rolling.

Once Patches finishes eating, he washes her bowl, dries it, and puts it up for later. Giving her a tiny treat, he moves through the house to his office. He’s been doing coding projects for money recently, making decent profit all things considered, and he’s even more recently been trying to start a youtube channel.

But something’s missing.

He feels like his content could be so much better, but he isn’t sure how, and it’s got him really frustrated.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he gets to work, playing music in the background while he loses himself to his codes.

And then his phone buzzes.

And then it buzzes again.

He pauses what he’s doing, picking his phone up from where it was resting to the right of him on his desk. When he turns it on, he’s met with two notifications. One, a twitter notification saying that George has responded to him, and the other. . .

His heart skips a beat.

It’s a text, reading:

“Hey is this Clay? It’s Nick from Orlando, we haven’t spoken in a while”

Holy shit.

Either this was a really cruel prank, or his childhood best friend had somehow gotten/remembered his number and was messaging him.

I mean, the text was certainly correct in saying they hadn’t spoken in a while. Nick had moved away to Texas when they were kids, and it’s been seven years since then without any contact.

He takes a breath, deciding to collect his thoughts before responding and choosing to open George’s dm first.

“i forgot i had left that there and you just nearly gave me a heart attack but yeah, you’ve got the right guy. and i’m doing pretty good, just woke up. hbu?”

Okay, simple enough.

“I’m doing pretty good, just working on coding some stuff”

And this is where the conversation takes a slight turn.

“wait i love coding what are you working on”

Smiling softly, Clay lets himself go into detail (keeping obvious parts out like who the project is for and how much he’s getting paid, etc) about the project. They go back and forth for a while until George has to go, saying he needs to help his mom with something. That’s where the conversation ends for now, but both of them agree to talk more later.

He’s feeling much calmer now, so he finally opens Nick’s message.

He rereads it at least a hundred times, and he can feel his hands start to shake from excitement. He’s really missed Nick, so if this is real then he couldn’t be happier.

“Yeah it’s me! I’ve missed you sm bro where have you been?”

It’s remarkable how quickly they fall back into normal conversation after catching up, almost as if they had never stopped talking daily. It’s obviously not quite the same as joking around in person, but it’s not bad. It’s not bad at all actually.

At some point Nick asks if they could call, just voice for now, Clay makes sure to clarify. He’s not sure why, but the thought of Nick seeing him right now sends the butterflies in his stomach into a frenzy. They both agree, and  _ Jesus Christ it’s good to hear that voice again _ . It’s deeper now, more masculine than the rather high-pitched and squeaky voice Nick was sporting 7 years ago, but it’s still so familiar, and it makes Clay sigh softly as he brings his knees up to his chest.

They talk for who knows how long, about both everything and nothing all at once. Clay learns that Nick misses Florida, but he still likes Texas. He’s apparently studying computer science, and he has two cats. Nick learns that Clay is doing coding and is trying to start a youtube channel, and that Clay has also gotten a cat in the time he’s been gone.

It’s nice, and it’s really only making Clay’s face heat up more and more. He’s not stupid, he knows what a crush is like, and he definitely knows he’s attracted to Nick, especially after all this time.

What’s that saying? That. . distance only makes the heart grow fonder? Or something like that? 

He’s not going to ponder on it for too long, justifying to himself that he should at the  _ very least _ get to know Nick better again after all this time before resigning himself to a lovesick fool, only to get hurt in the end.

He knows what it’s like to be hurt by someone he loves, and he isn’t ready to go through that again. 

But as they end the call and he goes back to coding, his mind strays. He thinks back to that time Nick and Clay’s families went on a shared vacation to Nickelodeon Resorts. It was a stupid memory, something he used to look back on and laugh at, but now it just makes his stomach do cartwheels.

They were just receiving the news that this would probably be their last vacation together (their families were always close and it wasn’t the first time they had gone on a vacation like this) because Nick’s mother was thinking about taking up a big job opportunity with her law firm in Houston. As in, Houston, Texas. And at their age, that seemed like a world of difference. So, on the last night of the vacation, the two of them snuck out to one of the hot tubs. And, though it was a childish act, and something neither of them fully understood at the time, they kissed. It was fleeting, something light and inexperienced, something just to say goodbye, in case it really would be their last. They never spoke about it after, but both of them still to this day consider it their first kiss, and rarely speak about it to anybody.

And even though Clay hardly ever looked at it as something with emotional weight, now he was seeing it in a different light. 

Sitting there with his hands hovering above his keyboard, headphones on his head slightly lopsided, curled up in his desk chair, he thought about it. About how maybe that night  _ did _ somehow mean more than he had ever entertained the idea of. Had ever  _ let _ himself entertain the idea of.

He takes a deep breath in through the nose, holds it for ten seconds, out through the mouth. He repeats this a couple times, and he blinks back the tears in his eyes. (When had they even gotten there?)

Tucking the thought away for another time, he resumes coding. 

\- - -

He eventually finishes the code for the day, ordering pizza and booting up minecraft. He’s decided to just relax for the rest of the day with Patches, and  _ not _ think about weird childhood feelings. 

He had mentioned to George earlier that he likes minecraft, and by some miracle so did George. 

. . .

They really do have a lot in common, huh?

. . .

_ Anyways. _

He texts George asking him if he wants to play, and George agrees, giving him his discord and saying his user is the same on minecraft.

Sweet.

He calls George on discord, thinking nothing of it. 

That is, until they actually start talking. Clay’s knees go weak and he’s literally sitting down. 

George has a smooth british accent, and though Clay’s never particularly found those certain accents attractive before, he’s suddenly doing a big 180 on that stance. Hearing George actually talking is much different than texting him, and even though he’s only known George for less than a day, he thinks he could definitely get used to this.

\- - -

Update, it’s been a week and Clay is screwed.

He’s gotten closer with both George and Nick over the past week, and it’s refreshing to say the least. When he’s not crushing hard on his two friends, he’s having a fuck-ton of fun with them. He had introduced Nick and George a couple days ago, and the three of them have all hit it off. 

It almost feels meant to be.

Shit, he’s really done for, isn’t he?

He’s only recently met George, and he’s falling hard, and he’s known Nick for years and he’s still falling hard.

Is he a total asshole for falling for his two best friends? Maybe.

But he can’t help that he wants them both. He just can’t.

If anyone else were in his place they wouldn’t be able to either, he reasons.

He can’t help that his two closest friends are perfect, can he?

Exactly.

Maybe it’s that he’s a hopeless romantic, I mean, he’s always believed in soulmates. He had just, yknow, never heard of having  _ two _ soulmates. He knew what being polyamorous was, and that lots of people were in happy poly relationships, but he had never seen it in his personal life, nor even considered it for himself.

. . .

Could he be polyamorous?

Sighing softly, he opens an incognito tab, searching ‘how to know if youre polyamorous’. 

Here goes nothing.

The page loads quickly, and he’s immediately met with a video. He slowly scrolls past it, not ready to actually hear it yet. The first little tab of the ‘People also ask’ bar is ‘How do you know if you are polyamorous?’ He clicks it.

The little box explains it relatively simply, “ Polyamory is defined as practicing or being open to intimate relationships with more than one person.” Okay. He takes a deep breath, and with shaking hands, moves his mouse to the top of the page, and closes the tab.

He rolls his chair back slightly away from his desk, trying to control his breathing.

That- That sums it up. What he’s feeling. 

He wants to be with George and Nick at the same time.

He wants to be able to call the both of them his boyfriends.

But how does one even go about asking that?

It would definitely require him to do a little more research, and once he’s ready and confident that this is something he actively wants to pursue after getting to know them better, it’ll take a long and serious discussion.

One that could either advance their friendship to something more, or ruin it.

He’s torn from his thoughts by the sound of his doorbell, and when he goes to check it, he sees his pizza sitting on his doormat. 

Thank god for being able to pay online.

\- - -

It’s been months.

Four months, to be exact.

The three of them had grown closer than ever, and it even surprises them how fast they had all grown so close. Clay feels like he’s known George for just as long as he’s  _ actually _ known Nick, at this point.

That blows his mind.

The three of them were currently playing animal crossing, surprisingly. They were all tired and didn’t feel like booting up minecraft, and they all had animal crossing, so it just felt natural that this is where they’d end up.

They were all at George’s island, considering he was in a timezone hours ahead of theirs, meaning they could buy things from his already open shops to annoy him with.

Did he mention it was currently 4am for him?

Because it’s 4am, and none of them have slept in nearly 16 hours. He knows, because they’ve been on call for that long.

They’re laughing at everything, and all of their filters are slightly busted. It’s one of those nights where no one’s watching what embarrassing thing they let slip, and no one pays attention to how dumb it is.

And that’s where it goes wrong.

Him and Nick have been running around for the better part of thirty minutes, digging up holes for George to have to fill in order to keep the island ‘clean and not ugly’ to quote George directly.

It’s fun, but while caught up in a sick cocktail of sleepiness and excitement Clay says something along the lines of:

“Why am I so in love with you dumbasses?”

Now, typically he can play things like this off as a mere joke, but mixed with his soft, sincere laughter, and the sheer adoration in his voice, it’s clear there was  _ at least _ some degree of truth hiding just under the surface.

The discord call goes quiet, and he sobers up to reality really quick.

Fuck.

Fuck- he- he just-

He runs to the airport while they’re both still processing it, making a quick exit from the island as he panics.

He leaves the call.

And suddenly it’s very, very quiet.

Too quiet.

He hates it.

He hates that he managed to fuck up a warm and fuzzy feeling, a calm night with his best friends, all with a nine word question.

Fuck.

. . .

He seems to be thinking that a lot these days.

Taking a deep breath, he gets out of bed, tossing his switch to the side after he’s successfully shut it, and animal crossing as a whole, down.

He’s going to find Patches, try to coax her into bedtime cuddles with treats, and take a nap. Because (hopefully) if you’re asleep, you can’t sit and ponder over the fact that you just casually confessed your love to both of your best friends at once while playing fucking  _ animal crossing _ .

He eventually finds her sitting on the back of a couch in the living room, and when he enters she raises her head slowly, and then proceeds to plop it back down once she realizes it’s just him. He holds up his hand, waving a tiny ‘treat’ in the air. He’s got these tiny little treats that are actually really healthy, but Patches just seems to  _ love _ them.

As soon as Patches sees the tiny treat, she hops up, and she follows him back upstairs to the bedroom. He leaves the door open a crack in case she wants to leave while he’s asleep, and he finally crawls under the covers, sighing softly.

Patches hops up onto the bed beside him, curling up on the other side of the bed on top of the other pillow. 

. . .

He tries, he really does.

He closes his eyes, curls up on his side, and tries to let himself fall into dreamland.

Heh, dreamland.

But as much as he tries, he can’t sleep.

Every time he even gets close to drifting off, he’s reminded of his best friends. Of what he just did, and how they could very well not even consider him a friend anymore, much less a best friend.

He hears Patches lightly huff in her sleep, and he rolls onto his back, reaching over a bit to softly scratch behind her ear.

There’s hardly any light coming through his window, but it’s just enough for him to be able to glance at his nightstand and see his phone.

After the incident, he had completely shut it off to avoid any sound coming from it.

He knew he wouldn't be able to handle knowing they were trying to reach him at the time, but what if they  _ weren’t _ trying to reach him? What if had really and truly fucked up, and they no longer wanted anything to do with him?

. . .

No.

He couldn’t allow himself to think that way. It would only cause him to spiral more.

Whether they were upset with him or not, he had to bite the bullet and talk to them about it eventually.

So he turns on his phone. 

His thumb shakes a bit as he holds down the button to turn on his phone, and when the little apple symbol pops up on the screen, he sits up, resting his phone on the bed in front of him.

Bringing his knees up to his chest, he rests his chin on top of his knees. After a moment, his phone moves from the apple symbol to his lockscreen, and he moves his face over the screen for a second so it can use it’s facial recognition, before resuming his previous position.

As soon as he unlocks his phone, the top of his screen is flooded with discord notifications. He takes a deep breath, a weird mixture of relief and nervousness swirling in his stomach.

He waits for the notifications to slow and eventually stop as they get caught up, and then he opens the app.

He has an ungodly amount of notifications from both his dms with George and Nick, as well as their group chat.

He contemplates for a moment before realizing that it doesn’t matter which dm he opens first, he’s going to read them both anyways.

He clicks Nick’s name.

It’s a big chunk of mixed concerned and reassuring messages for the most part, but it’s the last few that catch his eye.

“I don’t wanna say too much because this is something we need to all three talk about”

“It’s gonna be okay dreamie”

“I love you too”

First of all, Nick rarely calls him ‘dream’ or ‘dreamie’ anymore. It was a big thing when they were younger, and that played into Clay making his username everywhere ‘Dream’ a lot when he was trying to come up with something. It’s a nostalgic nickname, and he smiles softly at it. Second of all, Clay’s unsure about what Nick means by ‘I love you too’. He could mean that he still loves Clay despite what happened and nothing has changed, or. . . 

Well, or he could be saying that he loves Clay too. As in, is  _ in _ love with Clay too.

He knows it’s hopeful and maybe a little dumb, but he holds onto it just in case.

When he opens George’s dms, it’s similar at first. That is, until he ends with:

“it’s gonna be okay Clay, i love you”

Normally he wouldn’t bat an eye at this, but it was typically  _ unbelievably _ hard to get George to say ‘I love you’. In any circumstance.

So, he holds onto hope with that as well, knowing that he might just be setting himself up for failure.

He really hopes he isn’t, though.

And then he opens the group chat’s dms.

And he tears up a little, if he’s being totally honest.

There are obvious little reassurances mixed in, but it’s a lot of both George and Nick openly talking about how much they love him, and specifics about what their favorite things about him are.

He picks up his phone, moving so that he’s sitting with his legs like a pretzel, leaning back over the pillow behind him. It really shouldn’t be as comfortable as it is.

His heart is suddenly beating faster than it should be, and he’s crying a little. (Not that he’d ever admit that later down the line)

He reads and rereads the messages over and over again, before slowly tapping on the chat bar at the bottom of the screen.

How does he even respond to something like this?

Where does he even begin?

“Do you guys actually mean all of that?”

He only realizes how insecure it sounds after he presses send, but he makes no move to try and recover it. He knows they both saw as soon as it delivered, anyway.

“Of course we do dreamie”

“i’ve never meant anything more in my entire life”

That was quick.

He doesn’t start crying even harder. He doesn’t. (He totally does)

Without thinking, he hits the call button at the top of the page. They both pick up immediately.

It’s quiet, and he belatedly realizes they’re waiting for him to speak first. 

“So if you guys really meant all of those things you said about me, what does that mean for uh-” He takes a shaky breath, “For all three of us, yknow, together.”

“That all depends on what  _ you _ want it to mean, Clay.” It’s George who speaks, voice quiet and tone soft as if he’s afraid of scaring Clay away somehow.

“And what- what would you guys say if I told you that I’m in love with you both, and that I want to be  _ with _ you both. Really bad.”

He matches George’s quiet tone, and the conversation suddenly feels so much more delicate, so much more  _ breakable _ . In more ways than one.

“I don’t know about Georgie, but I would say that I’ve uhm- I’ve actually been feeling the same recently. I really like both of you, and I feel so greedy for it.” Nick speaks up. He follows the trend of being quiet, but the words themselves steal Clay’s breath. 

He’s not alone in his feelings. And not only is he not alone, but they’re being  _ reciprocated _ . 

“I’m so glad it’s not just me either.” And there it is. George also feels the same. 

Clay’s on cloud nine, it’s a miracle he’s still able to function at this point.

“So does that make us all. . . boyfriends?” He asks, still slightly afraid he’s misunderstood them.

There’s a beat of silence before a soft laugh comes through the call, and before any of them realize they’re all laughing their asses off at nothing.

Once his laughing calms down enough to talk, Clay hears Nick say a quiet “Yeah, yeah I think that makes us all boyfriends Dreamie.”

They stay on call a while later, teasing each other constantly with over-the-top and cheesy nicknames and basking in the feeling of being  _ together _ . 

At some point, Clay must have fallen asleep, because when he wakes up he’s still on the call, and it’s quiet. Assuming the other two are still asleep, he lets his mind wander, thinking about not only how happy he is in the present, but also about the future. He plans on trying to film another youtube video today, yknow, give it one more shot before he resigns himself to coding for a living.

But then he gets an idea.

What if- What if the three of them did youtube  _ together _ ? With their chemistry both romantically and platonically surely people would enjoy watching them interact, and if it succeeds, then that means he gets to work with his two favorite people in the world.

\- - -

They’ve only been doing this for a few months, and Clay is now one of the fastest growing youtube channels alongside George and Clay. Known as Dream, Georgenotfound, and Sapnap, the three of them have really grown closer because of this.

They now spend even more time together, whether they’re coming up with video ideas, filming videos, or doing literally anything else, they’re always getting closer. Their fans have started to pick up on this more and more, especially as they grow, and they even had to do a stream stating their boundaries and what is and isn’t okay. 

Not that their fans actually  _ know _ that they’re dating. They plan to keep that to themselves just a little while longer.

It’s more fun this way. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! All kudos and comments are appreciated :]


End file.
